Todd Duffee Recovering from Parsonage-Turner Syndrome, Hopes to Fight Within a Year

“It felt like somebody stabbing me in my back,” he told the
Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show. “I kind of freaked
out. Should I go to the ER? What do I do? It was that kind of pain.
I just couldn’t move. I could kind of lift my shoulder to a certain
extent, but I couldn’t use my hand fully. I could like pulse it,
but I couldn’t close it. I couldn’t pick up anything with it or
anything like that.”

The UFC heavyweight sat on the edge of his bed trying to figure out
what was happening to him. One guess was that he’d pinched a nerve.
Besides the knife in his back, pain was shooting up and down his
arm and he felt numbness too.

“It was scary,” Duffee said. “I’m not even going to lie to you. I
was like, what is going [on]?”

Over the next few days he saw several doctors and underwent various
tests. Eventually a neurologist diagnosed him with Parsonage-Turner
syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by shoulder pain,
neurological deficits, motor weakness and numbness.

“It’s one of those moments where your whole perspective on life
changes and you have to start kind of looking at things
differently,” Duffee said.

One of his first thoughts, though, was fighting. The UFC had been
considering using Duffee at UFC 168, but his doctor told him it
would be a year before he could fight again. In fact, it took him
about a month and a half before he could even close his right hand.
However, his recovery is now going well.

“Already I’ve had a very fast recovery,” Duffee said. “I’m very
advanced.”

While the typical recovery can take 18 to 24 months, Duffee is not
your typical human. The 27-year-old is one of the most physically
gifted heavyweights in the UFC. He’s suffered a few setbacks and
now a serious scare, but he expects to be back in the Octagon much
sooner than anticipated.

“I’ve talked to all the therapists I’ve worked with and the
doctors,” Duffee said, “and they’re all very confident that I can
come back inside a year.”